While it is useful (almost necessary), the telephone is the most
serious threat to your privacy in existence today. Your phone line
can be wiretapped or bugged and the telephone instrument itself can
be quickly and easily converted to a very efficient room monitor.
Not too much can be done about down-line taps. However, using the
TAP TRAP™, you can check your phone line for on-premises series and
parallel bugs and wiretaps. You can also check your telephone for
the most common types of hookswitch bypasses.
A hookswitch bypass is a modification to the telephone instrument so
that the carbon microphone (transmitter) or dynamic earphone
(receiver) will pick up room sounds and pass them down the phone
line to a listening post even with the phone hung up. This
effectively turns the telephone into a room monitor.
The TAP TRAP™ detects series devices with a resistance of 61 ohms or
more. (Most series taps have a resistance of over 100 ohms.) It also
detects parallel devices with a resistance of 65 megohms or less.
(Most parallel taps are under 30 meg-ohms.) It can also detect
certain capacitively coupled taps. It weighs 7 oz. and is furnished
in a high impact case that measures 4.25" x 3.25" x 1.5". The unit
comes complete with all necessary plugs, cords, adapters, battery
and an informative, illustrated instruction manual.
Please note that neither the TT-46 or TT-07 are "magic boxes" that
are connected permanently to a working phone line. They are both
test sets that let you check your on-premises wiring and telephones
for eavesdropping devices or taps. In order to do this, you must be
able to disconnect your inside wiring from the telephone line coming
into your home or business.
This is done at the interface between the telephone line and inside
wiring; usually just by unplugging a cable at the interface box
mounted on the side of the building. There is nothing difficult
about this, but, of course, you must have access to this interface
box.